Address Verification System

The Address Verification System (AVS) is a system used to verify the identity of the person claiming to own the credit card. The system will check the billing address of the credit card provided by the user with the address on file at the credit card company. The other security features for the credit card include the CVV2 number and the expiration date.

AVS verifies the numeric portions of a cardholders billing address. For example, if your address is 101 Main Street, Highland, CA 92346, AVS will check "101" and "92346". Sometimes AVS checks additional digits such as an apartment number, other times it does not. As a result you may receive false negatives from e-commerce verification systems, which may require manual overrides or reprogramming of the AVS entries by the card issuing bank.

AVS support

At present, only a few countries support AVS on Visa and MasterCard, notably the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom. American Express does support AVS in more countries.

Cardholders with a bank that does not support AVS may receive an error from Internet stores due to the lack of data.

Besides the Automated verification, some banks do provide merchants with a manual verification system. Usually this is done for foreign credit card accounts as the AVS only works in the same country. This facility helps the merchants to prevent fraud arising from other countries. The merchant's bank calls the customer banks (or send a fax for banks that request them). Some countries like Denmark however prevent banks from verifying customer data.

Address Verification Service (AVS) codes

{| class="wikitable"
-! Code! Description! Network
-
A
Street address matches, but 5-digit and 9-digit postal code do not match.
Standard domestic
-
B
Street address matches, but postal code not verified.
Standard international
-
C
Street address and postal code do not match.
Standard international
-
D
Street address and postal code match. Code "M" is equivalent.
Standard international
-
E
AVS data is invalid or AVS is not allowed for this card type.
Standard domestic
-
F
Card member's name does not match, but billing postal code matches.
American Express only
-
G
Non-U.S. issuing bank does not support AVS.
Standard international
-
H
Card member's name does not match. Street address and postal code match.
American Express only
-
I
Address not verified.
Standard international
-
J
Card member's name, billing address, and postal code match.
American Express only
-
K
Card member's name matches but billing address and billing postal code do not match.
American Express only
-
L
Card member's name and billing postal code match, but billing address does not match.
American Express only
-
M
Street address and postal code match. Code "D" is equivalent.
Standard international
-
N
Street address and postal code do not match.
Standard domestic
-
O
Card member's name and billing address match, but billing postal code does not match.
American Express only
-
P
Postal code matches, but street address not verified.
Standard international
-
Q
Card member's name, billing address, and postal code match.
American Express only
-
R
System unavailable.
Standard domestic
-
S
Bank does not support AVS.
Standard domestic
-
T
Card member's name does not match, but street address matches.
American Express only
-
U
Address information unavailable. Returned if the U.S. bank does not support non-U.S. AVS or if the AVS in a U.S. bank is not functioning properly.
Standard domestic
-
V
Card member's name, billing address, and billing postal code match.
American Express only
-
W
Street address does not match, but 9-digit postal code matches.
Standard domestic
-
X
Street address and 9-digit postal code match.
Standard domestic
-
Y
Street address and 5-digit postal code match.
Standard domestic
-
Z
Street address does not match, but 5-digit postal code matches.
Standard domestic